AN ENCOUNTER WITH EVIL

A SERMON FOR QUADRAGESIMA SUNDAY

Today is Quadragesima Sunday, also known as the First Sunday in Lent.  We call it Quadragesima because this word means “Fortieth”, and of course Lent is forty days long, commemorating the forty days and forty nights that Our Lord fasted in the wilderness before embarking on his public ministry.  As Christians, we always try to be followers of Christ, and today we follow him into the desert, fasting as he did, doing penance as he did, preparing ourselves as he did.

What are we preparing for?  If you remember, three weeks ago on Septuagesima Sunday, we learned that we were about to embark on a race with the devil.  Hopefully, we’ve spent the time since then getting ready for that race, and are now ready to meet our adversary at the starting line.  Today, we meet the devil.  I hope you’re prepared.

We meet him, of course, in the Gospel.  It’s the only time in the Church’s liturgical year that Satan himself makes a personal appearance during our celebration of Mass.  Sure, we speak about the devil a lot, there is the constant awareness of his presence around us, we are in a continual fight against him and his demonic legions as they tempt and attack us.  But today we come face to face with the Evil One.

That should make us afraid.  But it doesn’t, because we meet him in the company of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We watch in awe as the two of them sound off in battle, ultimate evil against the ultimate divine Good who created him out of nothing.  We watch as once, twice and three times, the temptations of the Evil One are thwarted by our Lord’s reliance on the Word of God, the Word of Holy Scripture that contains all we need to combat evil.  We could dwell on God’s holy Word for longer, but we have a more urgent task before us today as we are introduced to Satan, the Devil, Ruler of Demons and Lord of the World, the Great Deceiver, the Tempter, Father of Lies, the Ancient Serpent, the Roaring Lion, the Dragon of the Abyss.

When God made the world, two creatures stood out above all others.  The first was angelic and the other human.  The great and wonderful angelic being, more beautiful and powerful than all the other angels, was present at the creation of the world, when darkness covered the face of the deep and when God said “Let there be light.” This beautiful angel was sent by God to bear his light to the newly made world, and so was given the name Bearer of the Light—“Lucifer.”  But then, when God made Man on the sixth day of Creation, Lucifer must have been watching intently.  And when God brought Adam’s rib to life and made Woman, when God proclaimed to the watching angels that the whole universe, the whole of creation, including the angels themselves, had been created for man and woman, then Lucifer rebelled.  How could it be that he, the greatest of all creatures, the most beautiful of all the pure spirits, was going to be subject to man and woman made from the dust of the earth?  The pride of Lucifer, who believed himself to be like unto God, could not tolerate such an insult to his dignity, and so he betrayed his divine Creator and openly defied him.  For this he was thrown out of Paradise, and with him went all his supporters, some say a third of all the angels.  He now leads them in tormenting the damned souls of hell and tempting the living so that we may join them.  This is the demonic being we meet face to face today.

I said there were two creatures who stood out above all others, one angelic, Lucifer, and the other human—the Blessed Virgin Mary.  How different was her response from that of Lucifer.  When he who attempted to usurp for himself the highest place in heaven was humbled by being placed beneath this Woman, she who patiently and humbly prayed in her little village of Nazareth was visited by another great Archangel, Gabriel, and was asked by God to be the Mother of his Son.  She would later stand in awe of her calling, her exaltation, praying in her Magnificat these words:  “He that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is his Name… He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek.”

And here we all are today.  We are followers and we follow our Master.  We call ourselves Christians, because we follow Christ.  But let’s not forget, whenever we renounce our own will and submit it to the will of God, we are following the example of our heavenly Mother, Christ’s Mother, who gave up all that her Son may become Man, that he may live, and die, and rise from the dead, conquering sin and redeeming our poor souls.  And when we do refuse to renounce our own will, whenever we defy the will of God and insist on catering to our own pleasures, our pathetic attachments to the things of this world, who then are we following?  The choice is very clear, and the Church makes it very clear to us.  If we have ears, let us hear!  We bounce through life following the example of our Blessed Lady one moment, and the example of Satan the next.  And one day, as we bounce along between them, our life will be cut short.  And where will we find ourselves then, in all our bobbing around from one to the other?

Where would you rather be right now?  Sitting here in church listening to a boring old sermon about the devil?  Or at home, snuggled up in your blankets, or maybe in your La-Z-Boy with a can of Coors Light, watching a ball game on the TV?  Nothing wrong with doing those things, you may say.  Oh, but wait—isn’t there a third commandment somewhere that says something about “keeping holy the Sabbath day?”  Isn’t it Church law that says you must attend Mass every Sunday, whether you “feel like it” or not, that this is an obligation binding under pain of mortal sin?  Or do we forget that, pretend it doesn’t exist, do we just give in to doing things “my way?”  Do we defy God, like the Devil before us, or do we humbly and meekly come to Mass, in rain or shine, when we’re not feeling too well, when there are other things we’d rather be doing?

I’ve picked only one sin out of the seven deadly sins, and out of thousands of variations on those deadly sins.  I picked it for two reasons, the first being that it obviously doesn’t apply to anyone here.  Because you are here!  The second reason is that there seems to be a vast discrepancy in the Sunday attendance here from one week to another.  I understand that some weeks we get a lot of folks from St. Therese’s in Lebanon, because of their schedule.  But beyond this, can everyone here today honestly say that their family, especially their older children, the teenagers and young people, are here every single week?  If not, let’s look, humbly and honestly, to those two greatest Creations of God, and ask ourselves if we are following the example of the Blessed Mother who presented her Infant Son to God in the temple of Jerusalem, and then with her spouse St. Joseph took her Son back to that temple every year for the feast of Passover.  If your child is not here this morning, where is he, where is she?  And why?  A famous presenter of a radio show used to end each segment of his show with the words “Be here, or be nowhere!”  Let’s make that our own Sunday motto, and instill in our children a love for the Mass, which is nothing other than a love for God, his Holy Sacrifice and his Blessed Sacrament.  It’s Sunday?  Be here or be nowhere.

Just one example, but it shows how little we sometimes care whether we are following Christ or Satan.  And let’s not take offence at the idea that yes, sometimes, we are following the Devil.  Remember that all Satan wants from you is that you follow just one, simple law:  “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law!”  That’s all he wants, that you do what you want.  Do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want.  Because if you do, eventually you will do what God does not want.  You will sin.  In trying to find happiness by following your own will, you will follow the fallen angel into the abyss of eternal misery.  Satan tried his tricks with our Lord in today’s Gospel.  “You’re hungry after all this fasting—change this stone into bread and enjoy a nice meal.”  And our Lord reminded him, “No.  Because man cannot live by bread alone, by material things alone, by his attachment to, or desire for what man alone wants.  Man truly lives by God’s Word—God’s Word that we love him above all things with all our heart and mind and strength.  “Get thee hence, Satan!”  There’s no place for you here.